(Amber Renee Dixon) A tech CEO from California determined to diversify the Southern Nevada economy, Teddy Liaw, Founder of Vegas Tech Summit, is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

His company, NexRep, is a call center with a work-from-home model that reportedly employs people from 31 states.

In 2021 is when he made the move from California to Las Vegas, looking for a different quality of life and a different business environment.

Now he's paying it forward, bringing together executives and investors he hopes to convince to relocate here and diversify the economy beyond tourism and gaming.

Teddy Liaw, CEO of NexRep and Founder of the Vegas Tech Summit, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks for having me.

-So did you just wrap up the fifth Vegas Tech Summit?

-Actually, the fourth.

-The fourth.

Okay.

And you've got to describe this event for our viewers.

It sounds super exclusive, almost like it's out of a movie.

(Teddy Liaw) Yeah, it's really more of a retreat.

So it's about getting great attendees.

So all of the attendees are curated.

They are tech executives.

They're CEOs.

They're founders.

They're VCs.

-They're billionaires.

-Some of them are.

A lot of them are billionaires.

And then so you got great people.

Like any great event starts with great people.

Then you've got great programming.

So we have people like Ben Horowitz.

We have Andrew Turn.

We have the president of the Raiders.

We have a great lineup and great programming.

And then the last component of a great event is venues.

So we've done the where's where of Vegas.

And we've taken people off the Strip because they've been there, they've done that, and we take them to exclusive places at the summit or Downtown Summerlin at Harlo or out in MacDonald Highlands or even the UFC Apex center, the Raiders facilities, or even the first time that we did this, we took over Allegiant Stadium.

So we take them to places they normally wouldn't see, a different look.

Great people, great programming.

It's amazing.

-About how many people are you bringing in?

-It's always small.

It's meant to be about 130 people every single year, because we want interactions.

We want people to have connections.

The first speech of the first event of the first day is always, If you do this right, you will get quality time with every single person here, and everybody here is worth talking to.

-And it's not that you're doing it at a convention center space.

This is at your own home, your own mansion, is it fair to say?

-We do.

We do it around town, and we've got mansions in Henderson and also at the summit.

We do it at the nicest restaurants.

We did it-- One of the events was at Circa at the, at the exclusive lounge upstairs.

So it's just-- The thing that I love hearing is when people like, I've been coming to Vegas for 20 years, and I never knew.

I'd have never been here.

This is amazing.

So to be able to bring new experiences to all these extremely successful people is part of the allure and the fun.

-You talk about the business environment here.

So no state income tax, but there's Florida.

There is also Texas.

Why Nevada?

-Well, you just said, I mean, Florida and Texas.

-You said that, not me.

-So you know, it's just different.

We're, first of all, we are, of course, we're tax free.

But we're still close enough, and we're in the backyard to California.

So that matters.

It matters.

Number two, we're a hub of transactions all the time.

People come in for the conventions.

And this has been a mecca for people to come in, whether it be birthdays, whether it be conventions, whether it be work or social or personal and now sports.

There's so many reasons to come to Vegas anyway, so it just makes sense to be, to be where we are.

And Vegas is a great location, plus the tax savings and all the weather benefits.

-How successful has this summit been?

Have you gotten people to move here?

-We have.

We've had amazing lists of people and a lot of success stories.

One success story is Tensorwave.

So Tensorwave just raised-- They broke-- Sorry.

They shattered the record for the largest Series A ever in the state of Nevada.

And Tensorwave is a data center company, and it's a great tech company.

It's growing over a billion in valuation.

And these guys got their investors and their idea, and the business was really propelled because of the Vegas Tech Summit.

That's a great success story.

We have Neuro Gum.

They've been featured on Joe Rogan's show.

They're taking off.

It's a gum that helps your brain activity.

Sleeper's CEO.

So Sleeper is the largest fantasy sports company in the world.

And their executive team and their CEO is here, and he's brought some of his engineering team also.

So a lot of examples of these great tech companies that are here and deals that are being done that wouldn't exist without the Tech Summit.

-Congratulations.

I want to talk about your own company now, the pandemic's influence on it, and who are you employing and why are you particularly proud of that aspect.

-The pandemic changed the world.

And before COVID, we've always been doing at-home call centers, and we've always been giving work opportunities to thousands of people throughout America to work on really cool brands.

And the pandemic made it cool.

It made having an at-home call center workforce really, really cool.

So it allowed us to have a trajectory that we never would have had.

Now we're in e-com and travel and a lot of healthcare clients, and our workers are all over the place, and they get to do really cool, fulfilling work from their home.

And that's really what the pandemic did is it made it cool and acceptable for these people to do this type of work.

-What was the perception of working at home prior to the pandemic?

-They don't work hard.

You can't control their quality.

Who knows what they're doing?

And now it's like, no, people actually are more productive because they don't have to worry about a commute.

They don't start their day in a bad mood, right?

How many people start their day in LA driving an hour and a half?

And they're already in a bad mood by 9:02, and the day hasn't even gotten started.

So you get people to be focused on their home when it's home time.

The kids go to where they need to go.

And when it's work time, it's go time.

And you have people that are able to do that.

And more than anything, the pandemic said that US workers want flexibility more than anything.

They want the freedom.

They want the choice to be able to do what they want, to be all in, but for how long and where they want to be.

-That perception you mentioned prior to the pandemic, that has returned, though.

And working from home has now become politicized.

-Yes.

-What do you think about that?

-I think there are certain work types that require people to be face to face.

And the work that you do, this is way more fun face to face.

I would hate to do this over a Zoom -Right.

-There are certain teams that function better when they're together, and there's a lot of people that don't do as well when they're together.

So why would I force an individual contributor, for example, an accountant who could literally do 92% of their work at home.

Like they're not even talking to people.

They're looking through books.

They're looking at Excel spreadsheets.

What about a programer who literally just wants to put headsets on?

Even if he's in an office, he doesn't want to talk to people.

Why should he have to come in?

And in my case, call center customer service agents, they do 98% of their work between them and their computers.

Why do they need to be in a facility?

So it's inefficient, and we're just breaking old models.

And I'm not saying everybody should be at home, but there's certain people that could and perform better when they are at home.

-You mentioned on a podcast that you are helping employ parents who work from home, as well as veterans and disabled people.

Why is that?

-We're here to-- There's such-- America is full of such talented people.

And there's so many people that just happen to live in a part of America that's rural, and they don't have opportunities and maybe they don't have the ability.

It could be physical.

They might have a disability that stops them from driving, like I said, 20 miles.

The average American drives, commutes 20 miles to work there and back.

That's roughly 30 minutes there, 30 minutes-- That's an hour of your day.

Some people just can't do that.

And what are we gonna do, just give them no opportunities?

So we're able to power, to include, and activate this whole population of stay-at-home moms.

Maybe people have a resume gap of 10 years.

You know why?

Because they were raising three kids for the last 10 years.

And guess what they were doing?

They were dealing with problems.

They have amazing hearing skills, problem solving skills, and they don't have a resume.

So that should stop them from being productive in our society?

No, absolutely not.

Let's go find those people, give them opportunities, deploy them, and keep some of this work in America instead of going overseas.

-Did having your own children lead to some of these thoughts?

-Absolutely.

There's nothing-- I mean, anybody who has kids would probably say this, and we all agree, there's nothing more fulfilling than spending time with your kids and knowing that you made an impact in their lives.

And that's what we do.

We work our tails off so that our kids can benefit from that.

That's more opportunities, more options, and in many cases, it's just more time.

They just want more time with Mom and Dad.

And I think with social media and everything and impersonalization of this world, we've got to reinforce the home structure.

Because if we have really great home structures where parents are involved, they're there, they're present, it's going to make everybody better.

Less crime, less kids with issues, everything will get better.

We just need a stronger nuclear family.

-Your degrees from UC Berkeley, Business and then also Ethnic Studies, what impact do you think the Ethnic Studies degree had?

-I was the first ever at Berkeley to do that double.

So the first ever, it was great.

It's actually a huge moment, and I was super proud of that.

One part, one degree, the Business was obviously for my resume and it made sense, and the other one was really for my soul.

And Ethnic Studies, which is sociology, it's history, it's anthropology, it's studying the backgrounds of minorities.

I did Chicano Studies, African American Studies, Native American Studies, Asian American Studies, Women's Studies.

I took all these classes.

I got a degree in people.

And to be in America and care about people and then to be able to do a business that helps people, it is the dream come true.

-I was wondering if perhaps your background led you that direction as being a second generation Taiwanese American.

I asked you off camera ahead of this.

That means that your parents were...?

-They were born in Taiwan, and they came for graduate school in the '70s.

And then they fell in love in New York and had me and my brother in New York, New Jersey, and I grew up there.

So, yeah, it absolutely does.

But appreciating how hard it is for immigrants to come here, but they dreamt it and they did it, which was achieve the American Dream.

And that's what makes America so special.

And being so close to their suffering and their hardship and seeing what my cousins lives are in Taiwan.

That could have been me, but here I am with you.

It's just something that they wouldn't even fathom, right?

So their sacrifices paid off, and-- -What are their lives like, your cousins?

-It's just I have a cousin who's a doctor.

I've got cousins that are lawyers.

I've got cousins that are in the police force.

I've got cousins just doing a lot of typical work, but they don't have the same opportunities to travel, to see the world, work opportunities, to build a business, to invent something, to have dreams that actually can come true.

The right thing to do in Taiwan is to go follow the system.

Just follow the system, take the test and follow the system.

Wherever the system spits you into the world, that's where you end up.

So there's not a lot of-- there's not a lot of freedom, and there's not a lot of ways to really self-discover and then self-actualize.

-Still, you love Taiwan?

-I do.

-You describe it as an ideology being Taiwanese.

How so?

-It is, because Taiwan is one of the purest democracies in the world.

And when I say that, Taiwan stands for freedom, Taiwan stands for democracy.

Over 80% of the voter population votes and participates in voting.

We don't even have that in America.

Like 80% voting with nobody with a gun to your head, saying vote this way, vote that way.

There's two parties.

And when one loses, they transfer power.

Like that's a democracy.

So what I believe in is freedom.

I believe in the fact that they have democracy and they fought for it, and that's what I mean by that.

And we've got to preserve and protect that.

-And so what is it like being a second generation Taiwanese American now?

-It's, it's great in that I could-- I have things that are influencing me from my background, in terms of work ethic, the immigrant story, kind of the communication, integrity, work ethic, all of that.

And then I've got the American side, which is freedom and like go out there and go do it and you can achieve anything and you could dream big.

So the work ethic, the ability to dream big, and merging that together is just really powerful.

It's a powerful mindset.

-And I was more referring to, because you told me ahead of this, that you are concerned about what's going on in Taiwan right now.

-I am.

I fear that there's moves that are being made by China and that Taiwan's freedom and the things that I love about it might not be the same in a short handful of years, so I am worried.

And there's a lot of stuff going on in Europe.

There's a lot of stuff going on in Venezuela.

There's a lot of stuff going on everywhere.

And you throw Taiwan onto the list, and there's just a lot of changes that are happening.

And hopefully those changes stay at bay, but we don't know what's coming.

And just the world's changing really fast, too fast for my liking, and we got to bring some sanity back to the world.

-Do you communicate with your family back home about this?

-I do, and I tell them to make plans and that they luckily have family in America to help them.

And you know, everybody-- It's hard for them, though, because the civil war happened in 1949, and they're constantly just, they can't live in fear.

So I understand that, too.

-Teddy Liaw, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.

Thanks for having me.